Speaker 1: Ruby. Choosing the right business partner is like choosing a
Speaker 1: life partner. A good match leads to years of happiness
Speaker 1: and success. And to find this person it's a little
Speaker 1: like dating. There's a wooing phase, if he will. In
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, George Esquivel was looking for an investment to
Speaker 1: scale his company, Esquivel Designs. One of his friends set
Speaker 1: him up with a guy let's call him Kyle. That
Speaker 1: first meeting, they hit it off.
Speaker 2: And he says, hey, I hear you're looking for some money.
Speaker 2: I said, well, I want to grow the business. This
Speaker 2: is what I'm thinking of doing. And he goes, all right, I'm.
Speaker 1: In the next six months were a whirlwind affair, expensive dinners,
Speaker 1: private planes, box seats at basketball games.
Speaker 2: He was buying a lot of product for people. Then
Speaker 2: he invites my family and I to this crazy, crazy
Speaker 2: villa in Lake Cuomo Butler's.
Speaker 1: The whole thing was weird, but just you know, normal
Speaker 1: everyday la weird.
Speaker 2: He was an odd guy, another eccentric with money.
Speaker 1: Right, things were going well. They even talked about getting
Speaker 1: a retail space together. It would become George's showroom in
Speaker 1: downtown Los Angeles. This was it the perfect fairy tale
Speaker 1: until it.
Speaker 2: Wasn't out of nowhere. They back out Like out of nowhere,
Speaker 2: my life turns upside down. I had very little debt
Speaker 2: up until this point, and now I have crazy amounts
Speaker 2: of money that we're paying rent in LA We later
Speaker 2: find out that they were running a Ponzi scheme to
Speaker 2: the tune of two hundred and twenty million dollars. It
Speaker 2: rocked my world.
Speaker 1: Welcome to The Unshakeables from Chase for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. I'm Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business. On The Unshakeables, we are sharing the daring moments of small business owners facing their crisis points and telling the stories of how they got through it. We have so many great stories for you this season and some incredible guest hosts who are bringing their business acumen and experience to the show. For today, I want to welcome back a guest you heard on the last episode - Kathleen Griffith, welcome back to The Unshakeables.
Speaker 3: I'm so thrilled to be here with you, and especially
Speaker 3: for this episode, We're.
Speaker 1: So excited to have you here as someone who works
Speaker 1: with small business owners and is also a master of
Speaker 1: branding and marketing. I didn't have an opportunity to ask
Speaker 1: you this last time, but can you talk to us
Speaker 1: a little bit about why'd you agree to come on
Speaker 1: the show, what was the hook, how'd we get you here.
Speaker 3: I have a background in consulting for some of the biggest brands in the world, so I'm a huge believer in the power of brands and big businesses and how they can drive huge movements of people toward new products and services. That scale has always really interested me. But when I became a small business owner myself about a decade ago, my life looked very different. Internally I was bubblegum and scotch-taping my entire business together as a one-woman band, and so I just developed a tremendous amount of compassion for other small business owners like me. 70% of small businesses are owned and operated by a single person flexing in market, trying to pretend they're bigger and better and badder and braver than they are. And so I really wanted to take what I have learned in consulting and democratize that for more small business owners, really bring practical tools and resources and skillsets in addition to the right mindset to this community. I'm now glad and grateful to be part of it. I feel like I finally found my people. And honestly, Ben, I hadn't felt like I'd found my people before.
Speaker 1: That's great. Well, we're thrilled to have you join for a few episodes this season. I'm excited for you to hear this one, it's quite a tale, so let's get rolling. On today's episode, Esquivel Designs from Buena Park, California. In so many ways, George's story is the classic American dream. It begins in sunny Orange County in southern California, the mid '90s. Let's set the scene. At the time, most Americans were hearing the likes of Montell Jordan, Mariah Carey, and Boys II Men on the radio. But in Southern California and for a young George Esquivel, the moment unequivocally belonged to ska and punk.
Speaker 2: The whole Orange County punk rockabilly scene started happening, No Doubt and Lit and Social Distortion, all these cool bands, and that's who I just gravitated to. The style was vintage and kind of punk and kind of rockabilly, so I was going to vintage stores.
Speaker 2: George was used to thrifting and vintage stores in high school.
Speaker 2: In high school we were thrift shopping because we couldn't afford clothes, but then it became thrift store vintage because vintage got cool. My criminal father always had very good style. My mom would alter everything for him. It doesn't matter how expensive
Speaker 2: or how inexpensive your clothes are. The tailoring just makes
Speaker 2: them look so they fit you.
Speaker 1: George's father was a style role model, but not much else.
Speaker 1: He dealt drugs and was in and out of prison.
Speaker 1: He was, by Georgie's account, not a nice man.
Speaker 2: I had all of these frustrations and all of this anger and whatever angst that every teenager has, and then you have a criminal father who's out dealing drugs and causing trouble. I loved fashion because it was a fantasy world and you get to dress the part and you get to be someone else. You just have angst and you want to express yourself.
Speaker 1: He kicked his father out of the house when he
Speaker 1: was just nineteen, and right about that time he also
Speaker 1: started going to punk shows. The energy of the music
Speaker 1: it matched his mood.
Speaker 2: My escape from my life was going to concerts with
Speaker 2: my girlfriend.
Speaker 1: And he was young and free and rocking the rockabilly.
Speaker 1: The clothes he had down, but he could never figure
Speaker 1: out what shoes to wear.
Speaker 2: At the time, everybody was wearing Doc Martens and Creepers. The Doc Martens I already had, but they were kind of basic. The Creepers were too... They were too much. I didn't want to wear a four-inch platform, that's just not who I am.
Speaker 2: So on their way down to the shows, George and
Speaker 2: his girlfriend would stop in shoe stores.
Speaker 2: My girlfriend at the time, who's not my wife, we
Speaker 2: used to go to Baja, which was like Tijuana, ros
Speaker 2: Rito and Sonata, and at the time we used to
Speaker 2: go to concerts and I would buy vintage shoes, but
Speaker 2: they never quite fit. And on one of these trips
Speaker 2: to Baja, I saw a sign of said boot maker,
Speaker 2: and I walked in and I said, Hey, can you
Speaker 2: guys make me a pair of shoes if I give
Speaker 2: you a quick sketch? And they made me a pair
Speaker 2: of shoes and that was it.
Speaker 1: He kept going to concerts. The scene was small, so
Speaker 1: everyone got to know each other and people started noticing
Speaker 1: his feet.
Speaker 2: I just wear the shoes and people would ask what
Speaker 2: are you wearing and I'd say, they're my shoes, and
Speaker 2: how do I get a pair? And I wasn't about
Speaker 2: to go all the way to Baja to make more shoes.
Speaker 1: Concerts were George's hobby, but he had a day job.
Speaker 1: He was a repairman for a chain of linen stores.
Speaker 1: He drove up and down a two hundred mile stretch
Speaker 1: of highway from San Diego to Bakersfield.
Speaker 2: And I started realizing all of these shoe repairs that
Speaker 2: I was noticing on my route, and I said to myself,
Speaker 2: if they can fix them, they must know somebody who
Speaker 2: could make them.
Speaker 1: Along the way, George stopped at repair shops searching for
Speaker 1: a cobbler. He tried different shops along the route, but
Speaker 1: it was always the same story. He'd commission a pair
Speaker 1: of shoes and hate them. Then one day he stopped
Speaker 1: in a dusty shop near Bakersfield to see if anything
Speaker 1: would be different.
Speaker 2: If I show up and the shoes don't fit, they
Speaker 2: don't look like anything I wanted, get in an argument,
Speaker 2: gave my money back, the whole thing, storm out of there,
Speaker 2: and there's this gentleman that follows me out and I
Speaker 2: said something kind of rude, like, aren't you part of
Speaker 2: that group of those clowns in there? You know, because
Speaker 2: to me it was just wasting my time, wasting my energy.
Speaker 2: He said, look, I'm not part of them. I'm a
Speaker 2: retired shoemaker and for some reason, I'd like you to
Speaker 2: come to my house and I want to show you
Speaker 2: something in.
Speaker 1: The shoemaker's garage. George finally struck gold.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, there was all of these beautiful old
Speaker 2: machines and the mold and the last to make shoes,
Speaker 2: and instantly have transported me to that shop in Baja.
Speaker 2: So he makes me a pair of shoes and I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: so how am I going to sell them?
Speaker 1: And it turns out he didn't have to try that hard.
Speaker 2: Instantly, all of my friends want a pair of shoes.
Speaker 2: And I go back to the shoemaker. I said, look,
Speaker 2: I have an order of like twenty pairs of shoes.
Speaker 2: So what we would do is I would give him
Speaker 2: half of the money. And I think he was either
Speaker 2: charging me three or four hundred for a pair of shoes.
Speaker 2: I'd give him half up front, and when he delivers,
Speaker 2: I would give him the second half. We ended up
Speaker 2: selling like two five hundred pairs of shoes and two
Speaker 2: years out of a garage.
Speaker 1: Including selling shoes to some of his new friends who
Speaker 1: were in bands, and some of those bands were starting
Speaker 1: to get popular. I'll name one, Gwen Stefani. She needed
Speaker 1: some boots to wear on stage at an upcoming show, and.
Speaker 2: She said, Hey, I have an idea for some boots,
Speaker 2: and this brand won't make them for me. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'll make them for you. And one was a hot
Speaker 2: pink combat boot. The other woman was a hot pink
Speaker 2: kind of go god answer boot type of thing. One
Speaker 2: of the things that I realized is throughout this whole process,
Speaker 2: there was a lot of things that I couldn't do
Speaker 2: that I would do it anyways. I knew that we
Speaker 2: were going to fail, but I'm like, you know what,
Speaker 2: I'm never going to get the opportunity again, I might
Speaker 2: as well do it. For example, the Gwen Stefani boot,
Speaker 2: I had never made anything like that, and I go
Speaker 2: to fitter. The first time she goes it won't go
Speaker 2: my leg. George, I'm like, all right, let me adjust it.
Speaker 2: Then I saw her again, She's like those freaking boots.
Speaker 2: I love so much, but there's such a pain to
Speaker 2: put on. I'm like, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: Clearly not too much of a pain, because Gwen Stefani
Speaker 1: wore them to the show anyway,
Speaker 2: She wore them to the Vogue VH1 Fashion Awards, and it just kept going from there. I don't remember when it became a hobby and when it became a job. I can't tell you like, "I stopped working." But the LA Times did a piece on me because I was selling to a vintage store. Then Hollywood came calling. And then the Drew Carey Show, I started making shoes for them. I made shoes for the cast of Friends. And then after that, athletes started calling because these people in the entertainment, whether it's athletes or musicians or actors, they all just like designers hang out, they all hang out. And by now it's kind of getting away from that whole rockabilly thing because I don't have that much angst anymore.
Speaker 1: Retailers started to notice as his style developed. He got
Speaker 1: a collaboration with Fred Siegel, and through Fred Siegel, he
Speaker 1: got even more clients.
Speaker 2: I ended up getting Nicholas Cage as a client and
Speaker 2: he says, Hey, I want to wear your shoes for
Speaker 2: the Oscars.
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking, oh my.
Speaker 2: Gosh, this is so silly, you know, because I want
Speaker 2: my shoes to be seen on the red carpet. Right,
Speaker 2: You're gonna get some press. But the thing is, there's
Speaker 2: no red carpet that year.
Speaker 1: The Oscars were scheduled for September sixteenth, two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: They didn't happen on that date. They were postponed because
Speaker 1: of nine to eleven. They eventually happened though, and there
Speaker 1: was no red carpet. But Nick Cage, Nick Cage always
Speaker 1: finds a way.
Speaker 2: They do a close up on him and he crosses his legs, and then there's the shoes. All the stylists started calling. Then we did Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester, just more and more people..
Speaker 1: That was a terrific story. George is a really fascinating guy.
Speaker 3: It is it's the ultimate small business story. It's the
Speaker 3: American dream of someone who comes from nothing and then
Speaker 3: builds a business out of necessity.
Speaker 1: What I thought was really interesting is that it was
Speaker 1: the intersection of necessity and passion. Because you meet some
Speaker 1: people who build something only out of necessity. Right. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what else to do. I needed money. I
Speaker 1: went and did it.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You meet some people who say, I just always had
Speaker 1: a passion for whatever this thing is, and so I
Speaker 1: went and built it. He actually found this intersection of
Speaker 1: necessity and passion, Like I never heard of this kid
Speaker 1: who grew up with no money who coveted these beautiful shoes.
Speaker 1: You know that's a really unusual combination.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he did. He had a glint in his eye
Speaker 3: for perfectionism, coming from nothing. It was this aspirational place,
Speaker 3: probably this dream land that he really escaped to. But
Speaker 3: I know you and I share similar ethos around real
Speaker 3: small business owners. And I think there's so much focus
Speaker 3: on those IPO seekers, the unicorns of it all, and
Speaker 3: there really is just something so earnest in someone who
Speaker 3: wants to build a business, wants to make some money,
Speaker 3: wants to do good, and wants to be part of
Speaker 3: the fabric of what makes I think small business is great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think he, in particular, he does model
Speaker 1: that form of entrepreneur. But I think he also models
Speaker 1: the deep hunger and drive that comes from somewhere and
Speaker 1: clearly for him. A big part of it was that necessity.
Speaker 1: You talk to a lot of small business owners, you
Speaker 1: work with small business owners, you help them build brands.
Speaker 1: Do you see a difference in the ones who have
Speaker 1: that sort of real drive versus the ones who don't.
Speaker 3: So I have a controversial point of view about this,
Speaker 3: which is you're born with the hustle and with the grit.
Speaker 3: Not everyone is a small business owner. And I think
Speaker 3: there are rare instances in the entrepreneurs that I work
Speaker 3: with where there's been this breakdown in their life, like
Speaker 3: this cataclysmic life event that kind of blindsides them and
Speaker 3: brings them to their knees and humbles them and then
Speaker 3: gives them this hunger and this drive and this desire
Speaker 3: to forcibly push some idea into the world. But for
Speaker 3: the most part, I think you're born as a small
Speaker 3: business owner. You're not. I'm curious to get your po.
Speaker 1: You're generally nature.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I sure am. I sure am.
Speaker 1: I think you're probably right. I think most of the
Speaker 1: business owners I talk to will tell me they were
Speaker 1: hustling when they were in middle school.
Speaker 3: They just are like that doing candy arbitrage.
Speaker 1: YEA seven yeah, I think most of them are probably
Speaker 1: like certainly the ones who have the grit to get through.
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about George's story because
Speaker 1: unlike a lot of people we talked to on the show,
Speaker 1: and it'd be good to hear about some of your
Speaker 1: experiences with other business owners and maybe how it translates.
Speaker 1: He didn't sort of get out there and like start
Speaker 1: a business. And I don't mean that as an insult.
Speaker 1: I mean that affectionately. But the business didn't so much
Speaker 1: start and grow as it did evolve from an amorphous form.
Speaker 1: Do you see other businesses that sort of evolve like that?
Speaker 1: Are they typically more structured?
Speaker 3: It was very organic, and I think a lot of
Speaker 3: of the traditional business owners who have the MBA pedigree,
Speaker 3: they're starting with a business plan and a co founder.
Speaker 3: But that's not what we're talking about. I think the
Speaker 3: lion's share of small business owners that I work with
Speaker 3: really have a passion to create something and then are
Speaker 3: figuring it out as they go. You know, they're really
Speaker 3: figuring it out on the fly. One of the things
Speaker 3: that I think he did particularly well though, is establish
Speaker 3: those strategic partnerships at the onset and obviously that can
Speaker 3: if you over rotate on those, they can also consume
Speaker 3: and kind of subsume your business. But he was able
Speaker 3: to align himself with interesting brands and people.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The other thing I was struck by is and
Speaker 1: you know, you hear a lot of people talk about this,
Speaker 1: and I think he would say it himself. It's a
Speaker 1: little bit of grit and a little bit of luck.
Speaker 1: And I think the harder you work, the luckier you get.
Speaker 1: But you still need a little bit of both.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: George continued for the next few years running a made
Speaker 1: to order customs shoe brand for the rich and famous.
Speaker 1: His shoes would go from five hundred dollars to fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a pair, and they took months to make.
Speaker 1: The work was steady but unchanging.
Speaker 2: I would basically just show up at your house and
Speaker 2: what do you want, ben Well, I like that one
Speaker 2: in brown, and that one in green, and that one
Speaker 2: in Bordeaux.
Speaker 1: Done.
Speaker 2: That was kind of how I did my business. I
Speaker 2: like to say the answer is, yes, what do you want? Right,
Speaker 2: But that is not That's a different business than having
Speaker 2: a collection and saying.
Speaker 1: This is what you can't scale that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't scale that. It wasn't evolving. I was
Speaker 2: just the shoe guy. I wasn't evolving as a designer
Speaker 2: because I didn't understand how to evolve. I didn't understand collections.
Speaker 2: Then I wasn't really selling to stores. I wasn't connected
Speaker 2: to that world. What I realized is a lot of people.
Speaker 2: You go to school, and you make great contexts at school, right,
Speaker 2: And if you're in school, you might go to school
Speaker 2: with an editor or a friend of a friend. My
Speaker 2: inner circle was LA. Now. I was very lucky that
Speaker 2: the woman that wrote the first article about me in
Speaker 2: the La Times went on to become a woman's wear daily,
Speaker 2: the bureau chief of LA. Her name is Rose Apadaca,
Speaker 2: so she would from time to time, Hey George, call
Speaker 2: this person, Hey George, do this.
Speaker 1: One of the people Rose introduced him to was Lisa Love,
Speaker 1: the West Coast director of Vogue magazine. They had a meeting.
Speaker 2: Lisa Love says, I love what you're doing. Where have
Speaker 2: you been? I'm like, what do you mean? How can
Speaker 2: you not a part of fashion? I was like, I
Speaker 2: don't know. How do you become a part of fashion?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: I didn't understand that, and she goes, I love what
Speaker 2: you're doing. You need to apply for the Vogue Fashion Fund.
Speaker 1: The CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund was established after nine to
Speaker 1: eleven to help cultivate up and coming American designers. Some
Speaker 1: household names have been through this fund, and in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, so did George. They started with three
Speaker 1: hundred applicants and from there fifty are selected. They keep
Speaker 1: whittling down the group until they get to a top ten.
Speaker 1: I was getting on the plane to go to New
Speaker 1: York and I get the call from the CFDA Stephen Cole,
Speaker 1: who was a CEO.
Speaker 2: And he says, George, you're one of the ten finalists.
Speaker 2: I'm like, what the heck? So my life completely changed
Speaker 2: from the CFD of old Fashion Fund. They put you
Speaker 2: through the paces, You have these contests, you meet all
Speaker 2: kinds of people, and then there's a big photo shoot involved,
Speaker 2: and you get to pick a muse.
Speaker 1: George had recently met an up and coming musician named
Speaker 1: Janelle Monet. He loved her immediately.
Speaker 2: For Vogue. They said, who do you want is your muse?
Speaker 2: I said, I want Janelle Monet and they're like who.
Speaker 2: So they look her up and they're like, oh, she's cute.
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, she's freaking cool. So I said, Janelle,
Speaker 2: what shoes do you like? She's always in black and
Speaker 2: white back at the time. She's changed now, but she
Speaker 2: was very much into saddle shoes. And I have this
Speaker 2: one shoe that I designed for Fred Siegel. It was
Speaker 2: an asymmetrical stripe shoe, and she's all, George, I love
Speaker 2: that shoe. I'm like, Okay, well, let's remake it for you.
Speaker 2: I brought black and white, white and black. She put
Speaker 2: on this insane white tuxedo. If you look up her
Speaker 2: first major video, the Tight Wrote video, those are all
Speaker 2: our shoes. And then she was nominated for a Grammy
Speaker 2: with Bruno Mars and the Grammy Museum actually took the
Speaker 2: entire outfit and it lives in the Grammy Museum. Our
Speaker 2: shoes with her suit.
Speaker 1: But back to the Fashion Fund, George didn't win.
Speaker 2: I'm like, man, this kind of sucks. The three winners
Speaker 2: get money and they go to the front of the
Speaker 2: line for mentorships. I didn't have an official mentor, but
Speaker 2: I did have mentors, and he'd.
Speaker 1: Gotten close to the accessories editor at Vogue.
Speaker 2: The accessories editor says to me, George, think about what
Speaker 2: you learn from this experience and what do you want
Speaker 2: And they said you can ask for anything. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: I want to meet with Ana.
Speaker 1: That's an a win tour by the way.
Speaker 2: But they said, don't ask anything you're not willing to do.
Speaker 2: And this is not about chit chat. This is about business.
Speaker 2: And just like you see in the movie The Devil,
Speaker 2: Wears Prada, she's asking questions and there's people taking notes.
Speaker 2: And she said, so, what do you want to do next?
Speaker 2: I said, I want to learn how to do international
Speaker 2: business and grow my business. And then she says to me, well,
Speaker 2: you need to go back to school and you also
Speaker 2: need to consult internationally. Well, how am I going to
Speaker 2: do that?
Speaker 1: Again?
Speaker 2: Not knowing who she is, they call her the fairy
Speaker 2: Godmother for a reason. So we talked for a little while.
Speaker 2: I leave her office and my BlackBerry's just blowing up.
Speaker 1: Ben.
Speaker 2: This happened instantly. As soon as I walk higher her office,
Speaker 2: they were already contacting people.
Speaker 1: I just heard that ring from devil wears probably like
Speaker 1: it like the alarms go off all over Vogue and
Speaker 1: everyone's calling it. After that meeting, the phone wouldn't stop ringing. He worked with Fratelli Rosetti, Ferragamo and even more European designers. He did a collection with Jenna Lyons and got those shoes into Bergdorfs. I should add as an aside while I'm sitting here in my standard issue middle-age quarter zip, that's the most designer names I've ever said in one go. Anyway, he was kissed into the major fashion shows by Anna Wintour and had showrooms in Paris, Berlin and Los Angeles with Tommy Hilfiger. The Vogue accessories editor that was his original champion called him back. She let him know that TUMI was looking for a new creative director.
Speaker 2: "We at Vogue think it should be you." And now my juices start flowing because I had a very small business in a very small world, and I'm thinking, "now that I have the juice of Fratelli Rossetti and Vogue and I'm being introduced," I'm like, "Oh, I can do anything I want." Not anything I want, but I can start thinking bigger.
Speaker 2: He was with TUMI for two years, eventually leaving to
Speaker 2: focus again on Esquivel. I have business partners and we
Speaker 2: said I'm making a lot of money for a lot
Speaker 2: of other people. I really wanted to push my brand
Speaker 2: into that next level. I wanted to do something before
Speaker 2: I turned fifty, like make a splash, right. That was
Speaker 2: kind of my big deadline.
Speaker 1: George didn't want to sell Esquivel or partner with another brand.
Speaker 1: He wanted to keep Esquivel Designs pure, so instead he
Speaker 1: started looking for an investor. One day, one of his employees, Maria,
Speaker 1: came in with a proposition. Her partner, Kyle, was in
Speaker 1: film financing. He routinely raised large sums of money for
Speaker 1: creative ventures and was interested in partnering with George.
Speaker 2: He says, hey, I hear you're looking for some money.
Speaker 2: And I said, well, I want to grow the business.
Speaker 2: This is what I'm thinking of doing. And he says, look,
Speaker 2: I think I can really help you.
Speaker 1: Kyle brought George to private jet hangers. He took helicopters to meetings and sent him contacts who would buy thousands of dollars worth of shoes at a time. There were over-the-top dinners, a vacation to Lake Cuomo with a butler, the whole shebang. But the whole time, George was talking about the plan, the budget, and the business.
Speaker 2: So we started down this path and we're trying to
Speaker 2: grow it and along every step of the way. When
Speaker 2: I would push him on something, he's like, hey, can
Speaker 2: I meet so and so. I'm like, sure, but let's
Speaker 2: figure this out. My organization is so small. When I'm
Speaker 2: focusing on creating a business plan and a budget and
Speaker 2: all this for him, my business kind of slows down
Speaker 2: because my focus comes off of business. Right, Kyle started
Speaker 2: pushing George to get a showroom in La George already
Speaker 2: had a space in Orange County and a small location
Speaker 2: to meet celebrities or stylists, but Kyle wanted something bigger.
Speaker 2: Him and Maria would show up to the site, visits
Speaker 2: with me, and they met the landlord. So the day
Speaker 2: we were supposed to sign the lease, I remember we're
Speaker 2: going to sign, we find a space, and he takes
Speaker 2: a call and walks away and I don't see him again.
Speaker 2: So I text him. I'm like, hey, where you at?
Speaker 2: We gotta sign this. Oh, don't worry about it. I
Speaker 2: got you covered. We'll figure it out. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: keep in mind, Maria's still working for me. There's no
Speaker 2: final resolution of the money. It's all in good faith,
Speaker 2: but now I'm getting frustrated and getting annoyed because I'm
Speaker 2: depleting my savings.
Speaker 1: While this was all going on, George applied for an
Speaker 1: SBA loan, which is a loan from a bank that
Speaker 1: can have attractive terms because it's partially backed by the
Speaker 1: federal government.
Speaker 2: Let's hedge your bets. Let's just see what happens. I
Speaker 2: want to say it was probably like half a million.
Speaker 2: We applied for the loan, but we get it. And
Speaker 2: I said to him, I said, what is the deal
Speaker 2: because I have this loan that I can take, or
Speaker 2: are you coming on board? He goes, don't take the loan.
Speaker 2: I got you, don't worry about it. We didn't take
Speaker 2: the loan and it expired.
Speaker 1: Right, So how did this all come to ahead?
Speaker 2: I remember calling him out in a meeting. I'm like, look,
Speaker 2: we've now started construction. You owe need this much money.
Speaker 2: This is time put up or shut up. This is
Speaker 2: it the end of the line. We get a text
Speaker 2: from Maria that she is resigning, she is no longer
Speaker 2: part of this, and I said, Maria, what are you
Speaker 2: talking about. You're my partner. I've been treating you as
Speaker 2: a partner, I've been including you and everything.
Speaker 1: She resigns.
Speaker 2: He says he's not going to give me any money.
Speaker 2: He's changed his mind, and it just turns into like
Speaker 2: a total shit show. That same year is the year
Speaker 2: Barney's file for bankruptcy. That's our largest retail partner, Kathleen.
Speaker 1: What a story. So you know, he had a couple
Speaker 1: of sort of frightening moments in his journey, and I'd
Speaker 1: like to talk about a couple of those. I think
Speaker 1: we can start with the investors who stiffed him, so
Speaker 1: to speak. We've had a lot of guests on the
Speaker 1: show talk about these moments where someone wasn't who they
Speaker 1: thought they were. And for small business owners who are
Speaker 1: sort of desperate to get people to call them back,
Speaker 1: which I get, I can understand how that also makes
Speaker 1: them easy targets for people who are pretending to be
Speaker 1: something they're not.
Speaker 3: The honest appraisal, I think is what needs to happen
Speaker 3: first for an entrepreneur, like, do you have a business
Speaker 3: that is legitimately needing capital? Are you a high potential,
Speaker 3: high growth business that needs an infusion of capital so
Speaker 3: you're basically pouring gasoline on a fire. What I heard
Speaker 3: in this case was he had a maid to order business,
Speaker 3: there was maybe a direct to consumer business, and he
Speaker 3: didn't really actually have a plan for what he was
Speaker 3: going to do with this capital except for building out
Speaker 3: a brick and mortar brand experience essentially. So it feels
Speaker 3: to me like he was looking for an investor to
Speaker 3: come and transform his business, and I think that's traditionally
Speaker 3: not a great recipe.
Speaker 1: But then his other big one, and we've come across
Speaker 1: this before, was heavy dependence on one distribution channel. Right,
Speaker 1: So Barney's goes down and he's in a world hurt.
Speaker 3: This is such a big area of caution, like throw
Speaker 3: the red flags on the field. This is to me
Speaker 3: deeply problematic when you have a business and you are
Speaker 3: focused on one core buyer and you have one purchase
Speaker 3: order that can make your business essentially sink or swim.
Speaker 3: And so I think that's something most business owners need
Speaker 3: to think about, like how do you diversify your sources
Speaker 3: of revenue so you're not in that sort of predicament.
Speaker 1: That's a hard thing, and it's a hard thing when
Speaker 1: that relationship is always successful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you think it'll never happen to you, right, it's
Speaker 3: just such a good thing.
Speaker 1: Right, or they want more. It's hard not to give
Speaker 1: more to your best client, even when you know you
Speaker 1: need more clients more than you need more of your
Speaker 1: best client. It's a hard thing. Let's find out how
Speaker 1: Georgia's story ends. What happened? I mean, it sounds like
Speaker 1: you're doing well.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: How'd you get from A to B?
Speaker 2: The last I would say the last two or three years,
Speaker 2: it's just been a really difficult like what are we
Speaker 2: going to do?
Speaker 1: Am I walking away? Am I going to get a job?
Speaker 2: And I would say a year and a half ago,
Speaker 2: I met one of my clients who happens to be
Speaker 2: an angel investor in a VC and I thought he
Speaker 2: was just a gentleman who loved beautiful thing. Right. So
Speaker 2: it turns out he wanted to invest and we put
Speaker 2: a plan together.
Speaker 1: So we're still climbing out of it.
Speaker 2: The last four or five years have been really hard.
Speaker 2: It's been a learning experience. It's been a lot of reflection.
Speaker 2: It's just you got to keep fighting.
Speaker 1: So you now have a new partner, You have a
Speaker 1: new partnership. Where do you see your brand in five years?
Speaker 2: I want to grow this as big as possible five
Speaker 2: to seven years. It'd be nice if someone takes over
Speaker 2: the Esquivel brand and grows it to whatever they want
Speaker 2: to grow it to. And I just want to make shoes.
Speaker 2: I love the aspect of meeting people and have a
Speaker 2: space in LA or in New York or wherever we decide,
Speaker 2: and have people come and visit and make beautiful products
Speaker 2: for them.
Speaker 1: Kathleen, I want to ask you about one more thing
Speaker 1: before we go. You're an expert in brand building. You've
Speaker 1: done that for a long time. I meet small business
Speaker 1: owners all the time who say my brand is good
Speaker 1: because I'm good. But when you start thinking about, okay,
Speaker 1: I really want to build a brand that's more than
Speaker 1: just the people who know me and know my product.
Speaker 1: I want to build a brand that has equity that's
Speaker 1: going to scale. What are some of the things that
Speaker 1: small business owners need to think about upfront?
Speaker 3: Brand building is one of the most important things in
Speaker 3: the world, because otherwise you're a commodity, right and we
Speaker 3: know this. You work for one of the most iconic
Speaker 3: brands in the world. I consult for some of the
Speaker 3: most iconic brands in the world, and it's something that
Speaker 3: small business owners don't focus on enough. But you know
Speaker 3: they're focused on growth hacks and performance marketing and social media,
Speaker 3: and you know, to really build a brand earnestly, thoughtfully
Speaker 3: is so mission critical to then be able to differentiate
Speaker 3: and stand out from others. There are three things that
Speaker 3: anyone should really do when they're thinking about building a brand.
Speaker 3: I know you like threes. You can remember, we could
Speaker 3: do too, but we'll do three. So what I like
Speaker 3: to tell people to focus on is one having an enemy.
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 3: You've got to have an enemy in the world to
Speaker 3: stand out something you're pushing up against, some wrong that
Speaker 3: you are trying to make right as a business, Like
Speaker 3: all great businesses have some sort of counter position to
Speaker 3: something that exists in the world. You want to have.
Speaker 3: Two is really a mission to X, Y and Z.
Speaker 3: That's a great mission. You know, you're thinking about a legacy,
Speaker 3: something that you're doing ten, twenty thirty years from now,
Speaker 3: and then a big campaign idea would really be your
Speaker 3: step three in building a brand like look, tone, feel.
Speaker 3: Of course that's important and a lot of small business
Speaker 3: owners can make very glossy, you know, sexy brands, but
Speaker 3: beyond that, like, what does your brands stand for in
Speaker 3: the world, and how is it going to flex? And
Speaker 3: the greatest brands that we know, you know, the Apples
Speaker 3: of the world, the Nikes of the world, the JP
Speaker 3: Morgan Chases of the world. They maintain a consistent, persistent
Speaker 3: position in the world, you know, just going to shoes.
Speaker 3: I love Birkenstock as an analogy. They've just popped off,
Speaker 3: like hugely.
Speaker 1: My kids love their birth.
Speaker 3: They've got them. Okay, oh yeah, and multiple.
Speaker 1: Or yeah, And like I hadn't seen them, so you know, newsflash.
Speaker 1: I went to college in the early nineties and they
Speaker 1: were very popular in the early nineties and I hadn't
Speaker 1: seen them since then until my kids came home.
Speaker 3: Do you have a pair?
Speaker 1: No? Why not? I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's not my jam, open feet, not for you, not
Speaker 3: my jam. But like they tapped into something, you know.
Speaker 3: Their enemy was foot pain. It was like, why are
Speaker 3: we cramping our feet? So that was their enemy, and
Speaker 3: then their mission was really to create foot thealth for people,
Speaker 3: to rid the world of these awful, compromising shoes. And
Speaker 3: they've just maintained that positioning and they've exploded as a
Speaker 3: result of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I had a mentor in my career who said
Speaker 1: to me once, you can't make up a brand. A
Speaker 1: brand has to represent what you already do, and then
Speaker 1: it gives you a megaphone to say it really loudly,
Speaker 1: which I thought was really interesting. So good. Yeah that's
Speaker 1: a good one. Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 3: I think that's all good storytelling, you know. Going back
Speaker 3: to elevator pitches, which I think is important. George was
Speaker 3: a great storyteller. I'm curious to know what you think
Speaker 3: about this, but you really want to be able to
Speaker 3: stand for and this is kind of aligned with brand building.
Speaker 3: I think good elevator pitches have three things. They tell
Speaker 3: a big story about a problem that you're solving for
Speaker 3: in the world. The second thing they do is they
Speaker 3: have key trends or stats to kind of substantiate that
Speaker 3: broader cultural problem. And then then and only then do
Speaker 3: they introduce their solution, their product, their service, their differentiators,
Speaker 3: their values. So all these things can be architected together,
Speaker 3: and it's absolutely free to do the strategic work. That's
Speaker 3: what always amazes me. Ben, Like everyone's just hustling, and
Speaker 3: it's like if you took two minutes to just also
Speaker 3: step out and craft some of these things that are
Speaker 3: pretty simple. You have new tools in your toolbox.
Speaker 1: George, I want to end with a question that we
Speaker 1: asked to all our guests on the show, which is,
Speaker 1: if you could give one piece of advice to our listeners,
Speaker 1: who are largely business owners and entrepreneurs, what would that
Speaker 1: one piece of advice be.
Speaker 2: I would say, treat your clients not as clients, but
Speaker 2: as investors. And everybody who's bought shoes from us and
Speaker 2: who sustained us through these hard times and even through
Speaker 2: the good times. If I was just to look at
Speaker 2: them as clients, I'd say, Oh, they're a pain in
Speaker 2: the ass, they're difficult, they're all that. But when I
Speaker 2: look at them and they're like, no, they've invested in
Speaker 2: our brand, they've bought our product. They can afford all
Speaker 2: these other beautiful things, but they buy ours, that's what
Speaker 2: I would say. Treat them as investors because you're going
Speaker 2: to look at them completely different, and they know when
Speaker 2: you treat them differently, and that's what keeps them coming back.
Speaker 1: George, you have an amazing story and we are so
Speaker 1: privileged that you were willing to share it with us.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being here today on the show. Thank
Speaker 1: you for having me. It was such an honor tell
Speaker 1: the story and to talk with you. It's always fun
Speaker 1: going down memory lane. Thank you to George Escavell for
Speaker 1: speaking with us today. You can take a look at
Speaker 1: some of his work at georgescavel dot com or if
Speaker 1: you're in LA at the Grammy Museum. And Kathleen, we're
Speaker 1: excited to have you joined for a few episodes this season.
Speaker 3: I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Unshakeables. If you liked this episode, please rate and review it. We have so many more incredible small business stories coming to you this season and some amazing guest hosts. Kathleen will be back as well as some new people you haven't met yet. On our next episode, we'll meet a woman who
Speaker 1: dreams of sustainable energy storage and built a business to
Speaker 1: make it a reality.
Speaker 3: When you come across something that you just cannot let
Speaker 3: it go, you want to read more about it, and
Speaker 3: you want to understand more about it. Strangely enough, for me,
Speaker 3: that was batteries.
Speaker 1: I'm Ben Walter, and this is The Unshakeables from Chase
Speaker 1: for Business and Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. We'll see you
Speaker 1: back here soon.